


Kitty Curiosity

by ChronicCanon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akuma Attack, Almost Akuma Attack, Gen, Minor Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 18:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20728907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicCanon/pseuds/ChronicCanon
Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir take Rena Rouge and Carapace on their first patrols, during which Alya, ever the perceptive reporter, wonders who Chat Noir could really be. Of course, Ladybug also shares her two cents.(In which Alya Almost Knows and the team shares a brain cell.)





	Kitty Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Team Miraculous Zine! It was a lot of fun to write this, especially since I hadn't had much zine experience before!  
Hope you enjoy it!

The lights of the park turned on as the skies began to morph with the hour. Alya took in the Eiffel Tower, as she had done countless times before, this time seeing it against the backdrop of citric yellows and oranges, the horizon demarcated by a winding of crimson ready to give way into navy night. She walked, holding their friend gift for Ladybug, with Nino beside her. She felt a slight squeeze at her hand. Nino had found the meeting point.

They meandered over to the alleyway Ladybug specified only by the slight light shining from a hand mirror. It was a plan so cartoony she was almost reminded of Marinette. For whatever reason, the streets were much more crowded than usual.

Throughout dinner, there was a sense of becoming. It had been a nice date at a trendy crêperie and boulangerie, and they joked and laughed like they always did. Even so, the slight breezes signaling the coming of night kept reminding them that tonight, they would embark on their first patrols. Chloé would have come along too if it weren’t so difficult to keep her under a low profile. Even so, they decided they felt like they were placing themselves into familiar hands. And, of course, they had each other’s backs.

“What’s up, Ladydude?”

“Hey, Nino,” Ladybug greeted with a smile, offering his Miraculous. “Alya.”

Alya presented the crêpe, filled with sliced strawberries and molten chocolate-hazelnut spread.

“I figured we might have a long night ahead,” she explained, “and it’s not every day you come across sweets, right?”

Ladybug regarded the treat and replied, “Of course! It’s not like I live in a bakery. Can you imagine?”

She munched on the crêpe as she watched them transform.

From there, they set off to meet Chat Noir at the top of the Eiffel Tower- not an inconspicuous spot, but they wanted people to see they were being looked out for.

When they saw him, he was leaning back, looking out on the city that stirred beneath the lilac sky. He seemed quiet, Alya noted, or like he had broken character. His face and posture completely changed once he saw the three of them approaching. He greeted them with a theatrical bow, “Milady, Rena, Carapace! Right on cue!”

“No, you can grill us for being a little late,” Ladybug said, her yo-yo displaying seven minutes past the hour.

“That was us, dude, sorry,” Carapace explained, “Foot traffic.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Guys, it’s fine!” Chat reassured, “We wouldn’t want to start off the night apologizing. We have heroic things to do!”

“Heroic things?” Rena chuckled, “You mean, heroics?”

“You get it!” he turned to Ladybug. “Shall we?”

“I asked Chat to take the lead tonight, which basically means he’ll be deciding where we go first,” she explained.

Chat pointed with his baton in the direction of a slower, more residential part of the city housing most of their classmates.

“There weren’t any akumas today, schools have let out, and the workday is over. I’m guessing Hawk Moth might antagonize sleeping children again or something. And while we’re there, we can help out people going about their day.”

“The Kitty speaks.” Ladybug jingled his bell. “Shall we?”

It didn’t take very long for the team to navigate the rooftops, making small talk as their brows furrowed in search of akumas in a part of town familiar to all of them, their home arrondissement. Ladybug, just behind Chat Noir, noticed his eyes linger on the Agreste mansion. Chat was flashy, sure, she’d guessed he might like fashion, or keep up with local celebrities. Alya noticed, once again, how quiet he seemed, as though there was something he couldn’t let on, but couldn’t help but show.

“I have a buddy who lives by here. I hope we won’t be giving him a visit tonight,” Carapace said.

“I’d hate to have to fight a friend!” Rena sighed and continued, “But the most we can do is be there for our friends when they’re down, right?”

“I’ll say this much,” Ladybug offered. “Fighting anyone is _not_ nice, but helping people, especially people close to you, does make everything feel better in the end.”

“The amount of times I’ve had to fight some weird twisted version of milady over here is-”

Chat stopped running, and extended an arm sideways to stop the team behind him.

“There,” he gestured. “Rena, follow me? I’ll need a sly fox.”

She followed his line of sight, to the sidewalk where a woman walked, groceries in arms. Steps behind them, a man with hands stuffed deep into his pockets followed, face covered by a hood and sunglasses.

With the lightest of landings, Chat Noir slunk down in front of the man, as Rena Rouge touched down behind him.

“Sorry to bother you, but I don’t think the lady would like to be bothered tonight,” Chat said, arms up to feign amicability.

“Step off, kid,” he said, and swung at him. Chat ducked as Rena swept at his leg, restraining his arms. “Listen,” the man continued, “there’s been a whole lot of hurt going on here. She took my kid!”

“Was it a kidnapping?” Rena asked.

“Yes! I’m taking back my kid since the lawyer won’t give her to me. I’m doing the right thing!”

“Is that why you’re in disguise, swinging at superheroes?” Chat mused. “Doesn’t sound too innocuous to me.”

In front of them, the woman turned, noticing the commotion. She gave a sharp inhale and let out, “Robert? I’ll call the police. The restraining order is still out.”

“It’s _pending_ and shouldn’t exist in the first place!” Robert still struggled against Rena, but she wouldn’t dare budge.

They looked up, Ladybug purifying akumas with casual swings of her yo-yo.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Sir, I know things must be difficult for you,” Chat told the squirming man, “but I know a few great therapists who can help you.”

Ladybug reported de-evilizing 15 akumas coming from 3 directions before they got the man calm and ready to talk to some professionals, and the team bade the woman good-night.

“How did you know?” Rena turned to Chat.

“It was obvious! Fathers never walk with their children outside.”

Chat Noir was the most cryptic of all of them, Alya decided.

He continued, mask seeming to break once again, eyes soft and distant, as he gave his candid admission, “I’m just glad we kept a kid safe. I bet she’d miss her mother.”

Ladyblog and all, Alya wondered if people should spend more brainpower uncovering the 2nd biggest secret in Paris.

Ladybug and Carapace joined them on the sidewalk.

“What’s up?” Ladybug could tell from a mile, or a rooftop, away when something was troubling her partner.

“Wait, is this?-” Carapace squinted as he confirmed the street name. “Dudes, I know the _best_ record shop, like, 3 blocks over from here. The owner is super chill. We should stop by! I know he restocks today, so we could maybe make sure things are running smoothly.”

“That sounds great! I know a buddy of mine who would love that sort of thing!” Chat smiled, Ladybug and Rena’s questioning moods broken by his enthusiasm.

“Rooftops?” Carapace suggested.

“I’ll race you!” Chat teased.

“You’re on, dude!”

Chat Noir bounded off on his baton while Carapace scaled walls with parkour and leapt across the rooftops.

Rena turned to Ladybug.

“Teenage boys?”

“Teenage boys.”

They were both quite sure of at least that much. Maybe Chat wasn’t too hard to read after all. It almost reminded Alya of the times Adrien joined the class in online games and would egg on the other players. But this was a serious situation and the focus was protecting Paris, so she didn’t follow the thought.

Soon after the two set off towards the boys, they found Chat Noir and Carapace kneeling on a roof, peeking above a ledge. Carapace pointed downward, a finger on his lips. Another incident. Alya instantly recognized the back of one of Nino’s favorite music stores, Mu-Si-Caliente.

“Wow, busy street,” Ladybug remarked, crouching over for a better vantage point.

“The man with the gray scarf is the owner.”

“What’s going on?” Ladybug asked.

“I can guess,” Carapace replied, “The store has been struggling lately. The old man’s been complaining about less sales because of online streaming. It’s real rough, and I think he just finished talking with his landlord.”

“So you think his store is getting shut down?” Rena asked.

“I think so,” Carapace confirmed, looking back at the girls, then suddenly looking up. “Ladydude- uh, Ladybug? You got that yo-yo ready?”

She turned on the ball of her foot and saw a dark purple butterfly quickly gliding through the air, en route to the store owner. Once he saw it was done, Carapace tugged on Chat Noir’s sleeve.

“I feel like I can help this guy but I don’t know if I should.,” Carapace said, thinking about the moral ambiguity of favoritism and the potential unfairness of giving a superhero’s endorsement of a single business as opposed to asking people to support local businesses in general while not knowing if the store he wanted to help right now would even reap the benefits of such a request.

“I think I know what you mean,” Chat added, thinking about how he could give this man a year’s worth of rent money for his home and struggling business and not be inconvenienced in any way because of the size of his father’s estate, but also thinking of how that money still wasn’t his and he would need a reason to buy a ridiculous amount of records and record paraphernalia.

“Oh no, he’s crying!” Rena remarked, “That poor man.”

“I need to get down there. Chat Noir, I hope you can dance,” Carapace rebounded off a wall and called out, “Sir?”

“These akumas keep coming!” Ladybug clicked her tongue, swirling around, now at her third akuma. “Hawk Moth must be really grumpy today.”

Alya clenched her fist. She couldn’t go down there. Nino was recognizable enough as a frequent customer and a friendly smile, but it would really be the last nail in the coffin to see them together. Darn that boy’s kindness. She wanted to comfort him, too.

If only she could see what went down. From the looks of it- really the sound of it- Carapace had almost instantly begun beatboxing, and after whispering into his ear, he got Chat Noir to dance something between ballet and capoeira. Carapace’s beats were only interrupted by his words.

After a while, the beatboxing ended in a “3-2-1-”  
“Block party!” the two heroes exclaimed, emphatically throwing their arms up in a V. One of Chat Noir’s legs popped up like a cheerleader. Under flickering yellow lights and the foggy mauve sky painted with light pollution, it was quite the strange sight, Alya decided.

Rena let out a sigh as the man chuckled and nodded, “Okay.”

“Wait!” Ladybug exclaimed, “This one’s going away on its own! I think it’s over!”

After a bit of switching around hand positions that could have counted as practice for prestidigitation Houdini would be jealous of, she gave Rena a high-five and a low-five.

“We’ll workshop it,” Rena said with a chuckle. She peered at the store owner and the two boys continuing their incomprehensible boogie session. “You know, Ladybug, it seems those two really hit it off. If it weren’t for the costumes, I’d say this looks like Nino palling around with his best friend, Adrien.”

“What? No way!”

Rena cocked her head. “Oh? You seem like you’ve thought about this.”

“Chat Noir is too showy.”

“Like a model?”

“Like just a regular person who _wishes_ he was a model, more like. I think you’ve just never seen him at times I’ve seen him, or like I’ve known him. He plays like he’s all that, but he’s just a regular person.”

“And Adrien’s not a regular person?”

After a glare from Ladybug, she decided to drop the subject. “I just think Chat Noir could be anyone, is all.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out the narrative. He’s the youngest of a big family - because he wants attention - not particularly well to do - which is why he cares so much about the common folks - and probably not very well known, except maybe online - because he likes video games I also like. He’s just a typical person!”

“You have some weird reasoning. Have you talked about any of this?”

“Absolutely not. We can’t know anything about each other!”

“So,” she twirled her finger through her hair, giving Ladybug a playful side-eye, “this is all conjecture and you refuse to disprove your theories, girl?”

Ladybug scoffed, and turned to look at the playfully twirling heroes. “What_ever_!”

“Thank you so much for all your efforts, but-” The man shook his head. “My landlord is still upset. I should go talk to him about these plans.”

A roar broke out and thunderous steps reverberated around the streets, leaving pigeons to fly their makeshift coops, and a jolt of adrenaline run through the heroes’ veins.

“We forgot about the landlord!” Chat Noir cried to the team.

Despite all the commotion, the buzz in the air, the heroes were still heroes. They looked steadfast into the night, brave and ready to defend, whether it be a single shopkeeper, or the whole of Paris. They were ready to go.

And they went.


End file.
